We aren't letting go because we think Justice should be just and voters should be franchised

I realize that the right wing wishes we would just shut up about the Department of Justice scandals – "move along" they say, "there is nothing to see here – Hey! Look over there! A puppy!"

But the fact is, there seems to be a whole hell of a lot of there there. My background is clinical – and I can tell you that the deadliest cancers are often myriad little tumors, and that same pathology seems to be at work here. There is simply an overwhelming incidence of abject politicization of the very area of government that can least withstand that egregious offense.

Legal voters were disenfranchised. Black military personnel were targeted for disenfranchisement via a caging scheme. This much has been admitted to. How the defenders can continue to defend this Constitutional offense is beyond me. The actions of the Gonzales DoJ is an affront to decency.

The civil rights division was gutted under Schlozman before he came to Kansas City, where he pursued charges contrary to department policy with the intent to sway elections. In the second case, it might have worked. My candidate won the Mayors race, but I will always wonder – did that thin soup of a charge affected the outcome of the primary?

And now McClatchy tells us that it looks like the Federalist Society might have had a hand in selecting the attorneys who were fired and the candidates to replaced them.

WASHINGTON - A leader of an influential conservative legal group recommended a replacement candidate for the U.S. attorney in San Diego just days after the sitting prosecutor's name was secretly placed on a Justice Department firing list, according to a document released Wednesday.

The recommendation by the executive vice president of the Federalist Society, Leonard Leo, came before anyone outside of a tight group in the White House and Justice Department knew about a nascent strategy that ultimately led to the firings of nine U.S. attorneys.

It could not be determined whether a short e-mail, sent on March 7, 2005, making the recommendation meant that Leo knew of the plan to fire Carol Lam or whether his message was unsolicited and coincidental.

The subject line of Leo's e-mail to Mary Beth Buchanan, then-director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, says, "USA San Diego," indicating the top prosecutor job for the Southern District of California. Lam was on the job at the time and had no plans to step down. (emphasis added)

The text of the note reads, "You guys need a good candidate?" Leo goes on to say he would "strongly recommend" the Air Force's general counsel, Mary Walker.

Walker led a Pentagon working group in 2003, which critics said helped provide the administration with a rationale to circumvent the international Geneva Conventions banning torture in the interrogations of terrorism suspects. (emphasis added)

Leo, the Justice Department and Walker could not be reached for comment late Wednesday. Lam declined comment.

The Justice Department turned over the e-mail to Congress as part of a probe into last year's firings of U.S. attorneys.

While the Justice Department has given no direct reason for Lam's firing, officials criticized her handling of immigration and gun cases. Nonetheless, Lam drew positive job evaluations and has testified that she was given no notice of any concerns.

Democrats have questioned whether her firing was connected to her office's high-profile corruption prosecutions implicating Republicans.

Lam's name first appeared on what is believed to have been the Justice Department's earliest target list of prosecutors in late February 2005.

I am sorry, but this is just too much. Now it appears that the Federalist Society had a say in replacing the supremely competent and accomplished Carol Lam (of course, Carol Lam was also the one who shot down Duke Cunningham) and hand-picking a Dominatrix with a J.D. to replace her before she could take down any more corrupt republicans.

Nice.

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White House Directly Implicated in Arkansas Firing

It is being reported in the New York Times that Harriet Meirs personally phoned an aide to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales suggesting the appointment of J. Timothy Griffin a political director for the Republican National Committee and a deputy to Karl Rove US Attorney for Arkansas.

I guess President Bush just wanted to give Mr. Griffin a chance to advance his career. Of course he could have done that by giving him a Washington job in the Justice Department. Mr. Griffin wouldn't have had to sell his Washington house and move to Little Rock.

Hillary Clinton is running for President. That Hillary spent several years in Arkansas couldn't have anything to do with the appointment?

In fairness reportedly Mr. Griffin had worked as a Federal Prosecutor and as a JAG officer at some point prior to becoming a Rovian henchman.

On the other hand the Arkansas Times has reported that not all the the folks in Arkansas are happy about the appointment.

“Quite frankly, within the legal community in Central Arkansas and even Eastern Arkansas, they felt Bud was being pushed out so Tim could be rewarded with this position he wanted,” said Michael Teague, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor.

U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln said, “Clearly, the president and his administration are aware of the difficulty it would take to get Tim Griffin confirmed through the normal process, and therefore chose to circumvent it in order to name him as interim U.S. attorney. This decision denied the Senate the opportunity to carefully consider and evaluate Mr. Griffin’s qualifications and denied the American people the transparency the standard nomination process provides.”

The Arkansas Times reports that Mr. Griffin's political work includes "serving from 1995-96 as an associate independent counsel investigating Henry Cisneros, who was President Bill Clinton’s secretary of housing and urban development; senior investigative counsel to the Republican-controlled House Government Reform Committee’s 1997-99 inquiry into foreign contributions to the Democratic National Committee; deputy research director for the Republican National Committee from 1999-2000; legal adviser to the Bush/Cheney recount team in Florida following the 2000 election; special assistant to Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff from 2001-02; and research director and deputy communications director for the Republican National Committee from 2002-05, after which he joined the White House political affairs office."

The British Broadcasting Corporation has unearthed e-mail messages Griffin sent from the RNC in 2004 containing spreadsheet information on thousands of Florida voters. The spreadsheets were titled “caging,” which, according to the BBC, alludes to a voter suppression tactic.

Griffin's caging scheme was a particularly nasty suppression tactic aimed at black sericemembers. According to Greg Palast / Democracy Now! the RNC mailed voters letters in envelopes marked, “Do not forward”, to be returned to the sender. These letters were mailed to servicemen and women, some stationed overseas, to their US home addresses. The letters then returned to the Bush-Cheney campaign as "undeliverable." The party could then challenge the voters' registration and thereby prevent their absentee ballot being counted.

Palast reports that

One target list was comprised exclusively of voters registered at the Jacksonville, Florida, Naval Air Station. Jacksonville is third largest naval installation in the US, best known as home of the Blue Angels fighting squandron.

The BBC obtained several dozen confidential emails sent by the Republican's national Research Director and Deputy Communications chief, Tim Griffin to GOP Florida campaign chairman Brett Doster and other party leaders. Attached were spreadsheets marked, "Caging.xls." Each of these contained several hundred to a few thousand voters and their addresses.

A check of the demographics of the addresses on the "caging lists," as the GOP leaders called them indicated that most were in African-American majority zip codes.

Gee, I wonder why Griffin wouldn't want to have his name submitted to the Senate for confirmation.

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